New garden path! Fairy enchanted!

It was a long term plan of mine, to have an informal path under the trees in the front garden, from the letterbox, round the mulberry tree and to the steps under the pergola. The idea was that this path would give definition to the garden beds and keep our feet to the path, where we might be able to move around even in wet weather without getting too muddy. 

I wanted a path that would be relatively cheap and easy for us to put down ourselves. We are in our early 70s and so brick paving is a bit hard on the old knees and not a DIY project.

In the end, we chose a metal corrugated garden edging and a pile of woodchips which we had delivered. 

It took 4 days of activity - about an hour at a time, which was quite enough for a couple of older gardeners like us. DH laid the edging and I did the mulching. 

I have been planting volunteer plants like yarrow and pelargoniums on the garden side of the path and I expect that by next spring the place will look great. 

AND then we added lights!

I am delighted with the results! The wood chips are easy to walk on, and they keep my feet dry when the garden is wet. Each day I walk along the path and pull out any nasturtiums who want to grow in it, but that only takes a moment. The fairy lights give me a little bit of joy every evening. 

Thrifty habits vs budgetting?

 I used to be as a member of an Australian thrifty living site, and of forums to do with sharing tips on simple living. It was a result of these things and my general reading about climate change, which led us along a path of simple living, which enabled me to resign a stressful job and be confident I could retire early without putting our financial situation or lifestyle on the line. We were actually living on the amount of money we would have when I was not working, so I knew we could manage. 

Many of these practices involved learning how to be more skillful in our homemaking. If we could stop outsourcing labour to bakers, supermarkets, even farmers and shops, we could learn to make things at home which were  sturdy, wholesome, and practical. The pride of eating your own pumpkin soup, made with the stock you made from the chicken you roasted and the pumpkins you grew, is a great feeling. It is more nutritious and comes without weird ingredients and preservatives. 

Yes it was work. Work that is meaningful and enjoyable and productive! If it was too faffy - for example making cheese- we gave it a go and then gave it away. Blessed are the cheesemakers! But still there was a lot we could do with increasing skill and pride and productivity and our money went further than before. 

Thrifty living practices continue to be part of how we live:

1. Making a lot of food from scratch including bread making, jam and chutneys and yoghurt
2. Growing a proportion of our fruit and vegetables, and herbs which save us money and give us good quality food to eat. We are self sufficient in lemons! We have lots of herbs for nutrition and flavour. We pick green leaves for salad and sandwiches. 
3. Constantly learning how to avoid waste, especially in the kitchen. 
4. Maintaining and repairing our appliances where possible to keep them functional for as long as possible -for example, cleaning the dishwasher filter! 
5. Bulk grocery shopping to take advantage of cheap bulk prices and reduce the need to run to the shop too often
6. Buying second hand rather than new -includes most clothes
7. Knowing how to build entertainment around what we have rather than what we buy- reading books, playing board games, having friends over for meals, handcrafts, walking etc
8. Making our own cleaning products and laundry powder
9. My husband is our handyman and can achieve minor plumbing and house maintenance tasks, build us useful things like bread bins or picture frames and chopping boards. 

We have used a lot of budgeting methods over the years. I can remember years of using a physical cash book with ruled lines and columns. Of course we used spreadsheets from time to time. I had a subscription to MYOB but over the years they were not flexible enough for a single personal budgeter. 

We have spent years just doing no budgeting at all. If there seemed to be quite a lot of money in the bank, we would assume that we could meet our obligations and not need to worry.  After all we were thrifty people! This was not always true. It was too easy to 'feel' that we deserved another interstate holiday, and that we would be fine, but getting home to discover that we needed a new hot water system and we had used up our surplus cash, was stressful. 

Five years ago I gave YNAB a go. This is "You Need a Budget" and apart from being a happy customer I have no financial relationship with this company. They gave me a 34 day free trial, and I jumped in. It is an online software budgeting and education company and I have found it very helpful as a tool to add to our thrifty habits. I pay a subscription each year -and I find it entirely worth it. 

Joining YNAB has given us clarity and reduced anxiety over our finances, and we regularly rejoice about how YNAB has meant we don't even notice when a large recurrent expense is coming up, because we have the cash flow to be sure everything is covered a month in advance. Simple living or thrifty practice helps us live cheaply and well, but without the ability we now have in YNAB  to have funds to build infrastructure or cover recurrent expenses, we found it can only cover part of the challenge of living on a small income. I noticed that thrifty advice tends to lead some people towards a fear of spending money, and that it can be a bit joyless. 

Our five years of YNAB living have enabled us to improve our house simple living infrastructure even when my husband retired too:

1. We installed air conditioning - we live in Perth Western Australia and things are getting hotter and drier here. Airconditioning is supplemented by ceiling fans and shade structures around the house, and by the quilts I make to snuggle under in the winter. 

2. We added 3500 litres of rainwater tanks. 

3. We now have an electric vehicle and home charger so we can drive per kilometer  at one third of the cost of an Internal Combustion engine and on solar power from our solar panels. 

4. We completed the removal of dangerous asbestos fencing and made new fencing around our garden There is a new retaining wall on one side of the garden, which has enabled some pretty landscaping to occur. 

5. We needed to repair our ceilings as we live in an older house and the strapping between the beams and the ceiling panels needed renewing or they would fall down- this is a very expensive exercise but we could confidently save up for it whilst still having money for fun things like live music and community theatre. 

I find great relief from anxiety with the method of budgeting I have been taught. 

How do you budget? 

In praise of baskets -and tips on how to buy them

I love to browse op shops for things that are both beautiful and practical, and none are more beautiful and practical than cane baskets. All of these have been found in op shops, and I have not spent more than about $10 on any one of them. I have quite a number now, and don't yet see the need to stop collecting them yet. Nothing screams "simple living" than a basket actually being used. If I were a social media influencer this post would contain a picture of me in a floppy hat and a frilly dress, with a basket hooked over my arm, in my garden whilst I harvest flowers or something.

Instead I use them in the following ways:

This is my library basket. It is strong and sturdy and feels great when carried. I can keep my library books near my chair and pick it up and carry it away if I want to go and get more books! 

This is the laundry recycling station. We have laundry baskets, flat baskets for drying seeds, baskets to take the recycling to the bin, and baskets to corral the scrap paper for the compost. 

There is nothing like a good sturdy basket to take to the garden to pick your own fruit. 

But if you have too much fruit, you need a basket to put some out on the verge to enable neighbours to help themselves. 

And if your seed is dry, you need a basket to hold the seed heads while you separate the seed from the husks. 

When not storing fruit,  baskets can hold dried flowers or your keys.

They hold toys for grandchildren. 

They keep spare parts for quilting.

They cover plastic plant pots. 

They fill the space at the top of bookcases in a decorative way, whilst waiting for another task. 

A few tips for buying baskets:

1. Set them on a level surface and see if they stand upright without wobbling or looking wonky. Wonky baskets are very hard to correct.

2. The handle needs to be securely attached if you might want to use it to hold heavy things. I have been able to reglue a few handles which were coming unstuck, but each basket seems to have its own way of attaching the handle to the base, and you need to look carefully to see if it is repairable. I have one basket which I repaired by wrapping with string, and it is still going strong. 

3. I can make do with a basket that has a tiny break in the cane weave, but not if it affects its ability to hold the contents securely

4. Fashion will tell you that you need your basket to have a washed out French grey look, and I have seen people spray painting them to get that look. Personally I think the golden brown shades of cane to be universally acceptable. 

5. If a basket has been damp and has a mouldy look or smell , you may be able to resurrect it (non-food storage only) by spraying it with a teaspoon of clove oil mixed with a litre of water, and sprayed on the can very thoroughly, then dried in the sun. I have one that I gave this treatment to, and it is still very useful to take Nanna's supplies of games and toys when I go babysitting. Note: our grandchildren are too old to put things in their mouths! 

6. Always buy them second hand or in charity shops! The price is very much discounted there. 

7. Consider picnic baskets - but take out the inner loops which were made to hold utensils- you will then have a very sturdy basket for other purposes.

8. Don't carry a basket close to your clothes if you are wearing a loose weave fabric which may snag on a bit of cane which is sticking out a tiny bit. 

Do you love baskets too? 

 

How to decorate and refresh without shopping

I love being creative-I quilt, I garden and cook, and I decorate. I love to change things around inside my home -a shelf or  a mantle might get cleaned off and a new collection of items put there to entice the eye and the brain.

As someone who loves living simply, I try to do this without following decorating trends or buying new things. If you can make your house a home even if there is not a lot of money, you are on a budget or just sick of shopping, are there any things you can do to decorate and refresh? 

Well the first thing I try to make myself do is just tidy up!

It always surprising how a clean floor and a bit of dusting and straightening makes everything feel calmer and nicer. The same goes for opening windows to let fresh air inside, and cleaning up pet clutter. The cat tray is a mega issue for my happiness unless it is fresh. I think Dora prefers it that way too! 

I am quite conscious of things which are out of place and find it hard to work or relax in cluttered spaces. This is not true of everyone who lives in my house, but as it bothers me they are usually pretty good at putting things away, and I reckon that if it bothers me and not them, it is up to me to fix it. 

Long time ago I found help from Flylady and her cleaning routines. I actually read her book which I got from the library! We were parents of young children and both had to work long hours. The house was so messy that when we had a break in and the police came, I had to say "No, they didn't trash the place, it always looks like this'. Embarrasing much? 

Flylady mottos and practices are still part of my life. A five minute pickup does make things better. Cleaning your sink and making your bed does calm the space and help you feel in control. "Focus makes you fabulous".  Lately I have found Dana K White's podcast "A Slob Comes Clean" is very useful too. 

Apart from tidying up, which has its own real and cheap magic to perform what can you do?

A LIST OF STRATEGIES

1. Instead of buying cut flowers

If you look at online decorators blogs you will find plants and flowers feature in the inspirational photos. Flowers cheer any space up, but there are only a few times when I am certainly going to spend $35 on a bunch of supermarket flowers. Instead I do the following things:

• bring in a pot plant for a few days -some of them stay if they like the space, others need a long time outside and a few days inside 

• cut some green leaves and stick them in a vase or jar or pot or anything. If you have only a few pieces, they can go in a tiny vase or an eggcup or a medicine bottle. 

• go for a walk and collect some sticks and dead branches or seed heads to spread on a shelf 

• Use local flowers, seeds and cones that you find in your garden. In Western Australia it is a crime to take these from the bush, but we can have lovely things at home in our garden, like this hardenbergia growing over a stump of a dead tree in my garden. 

• Make one or more crafted flowers-and have fun at the same time!

• raid the collection of fake flowers -do you have any? I keep some in the cupboard and mix them up with real leaves -they look more realistic that way. In my climate there are times when flowers are hard to come by in the garden- the height of summer, for example, when the heat browns everything off. Fake flowers or dried flowers can fill a gap -but I don't leave them out until they are dusty! A swish in warm water will revive silk ones, but dried ones need to be taken outside and given a shake. Moving them around makes them feel different too. 

• Use fruit instead. Bright lemons, green olives in a wooden bowl or basket, anything you have. 

2.  It is dark in here!

Natural light is one of those things that architects get good money for designing into a space. You can't do much if it is dark and dreary outside, or if your house faces to a blank wall, without expensive alterations. Here are some ideas which are cheaper than those major changes:

• Open the curtains or blinds to the maximum they will go. I am shocked how often people live without even noticing the free light which they could have if only they pushed everything up, away and against the wall. This might include re-arranging furniture to maximise the light from a window. If there is foliage in the way outside, time to prune it down! I don't like furniture to block natural light if it is at all possible to put it somewhere else. 

• Check where you can encourage light to bounce from outside to inside. We had a dark brown floor on our entry porch, but when we tiled it with left over white tiles, the afternoon sun bounced off the tiles, to the porch ceiling and into our dark loungeroom. It was also safer to come up to the house because the step was easier to see. A colourbond shed in the garden shines light into our kitchen and brightens things out there. 

• Mirrors can bounce light around -try putting one in a place where it can collect light from a nearby window and push it towards the dark space.

• Add table lamps -I often get mine from op shops or the tip shop. Maybe add a nice shade if it is worth it. Fitted with a LED globe they are cheap to run.

• Can you make a colour change to something lighter? Cushions, rugs and curtains are not too hard to move around and some of them can be home made too. They can brighten a space. 

3. I am bored and this place feels tired 

Sometimes I just need novelty! What I do then is fall back on the old 'move things around or shop at home" to make a tablescape. The above is one I made around Halloween -a book I already owned, a couple of lanterns from the garden, a  gargoyle from the op shop and some magpie feathers found in the park. Other ideas include- 

• move pictures from one room to another 
• move the furniture around 
• put music on, open the windows, light a candle
• Choose a theme land make a tiny vignette on a table or shelf. You don't need to wait for a large holiday -if you have a collection of woodland animals, or cats, or a stack of quilts- put them somewhere new and admire them again. 

• Cook something nice and make the house feel welcoming! 

FINALLY! 

Recently I wanted to do my refresh thing and came up with a theme of "Mad scientist's Victorian library". I already had leather lounge chairs, book cases, and a mantle piece with an old clock. I raided my collections for wooden boxes for the mantle and bottles that looks like I have been collecting nature specimens.

I cleared off the console and added beautiful books, a book stand and a globe which I found in an op shop. All of this makes me happy! 

I will probably change this around again soon. Maybe for Halloween? 

Hope you found this post helpful to inspire you to keep your place looking nice too. 

Autumn is here?

 We haven't had much to identify our weather as autumn yet. It has been so hot and dry! This week, though, the temperatures have taken a dive toward 'mild' instead of 'hot' and I am actually wearing jeans for the first time in 6 months. On the strength of this alone, I planted today some lovely native plants which were free from the City Council. I got the 'verge pack' and planted them to fill in gaps in the verge out the front. If it ever starts to rain, they will get a good start on growing before the next hot summer, but I am prepared to water them as necessary to get them started on life. 

I gave away a grevillea to a friend because they make me very itchy, but I have planted a prostrate banksia (Banksia petiolaris), Black Kennedia (Kennedia nigricans), Woolly netbush (Calothamnus Histutus), Grey Cottonheads (Conostylis Candicans), Emu Bush (Eremophila glabra), Cushion bush (Leucophyta brownii), Ground Banksia (Banksia blechnifolia),  and a Rose Banjine (Pimelia rosea).  

Last week we had a worker build us a new retaining wall across the whole of our eastern boundary. It was a job that needed doing for a long tim. It was a mixture of jarrah sleepers and concrete blocks but it was falling down! It is so nice now it is completed. I still have to get plants and reticulation sorted along this whole length though.  The good news is that the jasmine has survived both last year's new fence and this year's retaining wall builds, and has not skipped a beat. 

The citrus trees are now ripening so here we go again with our massive harvest!

The ruby grapefruit are so yummy as a breakfast juice. We feel very luxurious having this resource to use and share.

DH is going well after last year's knee replacement surgery. We even have managed a couple of gentle beach walks. He has signed up for his other knee to be done in June and hopes that, when recovered, we can do many more. 

This gorgeous Elna Automatic was given to me by a friend, whose mother got it from her sister. Both of these ladies are in their 90s! I took it along to a retired sewing machine mechanic for a service and he was very impressed with the quality of the engineering. It is a lovely machine, and the knee lever is a joy to use. I will gradually get more familiar with the machine and its wonderful selection of stitches.

Last weekend we opened our home for the third time as part of Australia's Sustainable House Open Day.  We showed 26 people over the house and garden in the course of the day, in four time slots.  They were very appreciative of us showing how we have adapted a 1970s home -such as the ones they live in- to be as sustainable as possible.

See all the houses which were open at https://sustainablehouseday.com/

Apart from all these things, we have been busy with grandparenting duties- our son and daughter in law have moved into a shiny new house and that is quite a bit of work, to get packed up and then start unpacking at the new place. 

A quilt finish, a new machine and more fixing things

When I wrote my last post about fixing things, DH had a plan on how to fix the pot plant stand which was buckling. I am happy to report that this circle of wood which he cut and fixed to the base is exactly the reinforcement it needed. 

I can now turn the ficus benjamina around towards the morning sun, to help it grow more branches and become less uneven in its growth habit. 

This week I dropped some things off at the op shop, and as usual went inside for a quick look. This original watercolour  (below) was in a broken frame and stuffed in a crate. I  saw it, loved it, and so bought it for $7 and another empty frame for $5. DH helped me trim the matt to size and installed some piano wire to the frame to hang it up.

We are both delighted with it. It would appear to have been painted in 1983. 

Some time back I decided that we would try to feature original art, or buy prints directly from the artist, but each art work had to cost less than $50. Since that time we have added some very lovely works to our home. 

My friend's elderly mother received this 1960 Elna from her sister. As she doesn't sew, my friend offered to find it a home, and thought of me! It works well but I need to get the wall plug rewired. I have downloaded the manual and so know where to give  it some oil. Stay tuned for how the project goes. 

Finally here is the 'forest floor' quilt I have just finished, using batik jelly roll fabric I was given by a friend. It got a bit sidelined over Christmas, but I am happy it is now complete. As my tshirt says "done is better than perfect". 

 

So that is all for this week. I hope you have some joy in fixing and finishing things too. 

How to be happy and frugal: Fix Things!

 If I think of the things which make me very happy the list is long, and one of them is absolutely the delight I feel when I fix something. The sense of achievement is a real ego booster. What was a problem has now been solved. The item is useful again. In turn this is a big money saver- as well as a way of preventing things going to landfill. I think this is compounded for me by the sense of agency- as a girl I was not expected to do more than cook or sew, but give me a drill and a hammer and I am powerful! 

For instance, today the youngest grandchild noticed letters in the letterbox, and wanted to get the key and get the letters. When you are 6 this is a grown up, independent and helpful thing to do.

 The problem was that the key would not turn in the lock. We knew it had been getting worse, but had  done nothing  about it but jiggle jiggle jiggle everytime we wanted the lock to turn. Today it was a serious problem for Mr 6, and today it took just a squirt with a can of silicone spray to lubricate the lock and make it good for another 6 months. At the same time DH sprayed the tracks in our outdoor blind and made them smooth and easy to use too.  

Some kind of hardware style lubricant is a good thing to have in any 'fix it' kit. Other items might be strong glues of various kinds, a screwdriver or two, some strong adhesive tape, a couple of permanent markers for covering scratches, maybe a clamp to hold broken pieces together as they cure. 

Do you have a fix it kit? I wonder what you would include in it? 

In our hot climate an automatic reticulation system is essential in a garden and because we have a drying climate we use drippers and microsprays. Sometimes these get clogged or broken and a plant will be struggling. Yet it is a task of just moments to replace the broken part and get everything working again. We keep reticulation parts for exactly that reason, in our shed. 

We use two clothes lines outside -the kind we call 'parallines"- a rectangle hung on a wall with lines of wire to hang the clothes on, making great use of limited space. Recently the most used one -up in the sunshine and the wind-had its wires fray and snap. I took a piece of it with me to the hardware store and found a replacement bundle of wire, then worked out how to re-string it again. Not difficult, but so practical and useful. 

I did the same with the lovely windchime which announces the arrival of our sea breeze. Recently it fell with a clang because the fishing wire which holds it up had broken. I found some galvanised wire in DH's shed and made it secure again. 

A common issue in households are things which use batteries, because they stop working when the battery has to be recharged or replaced. One very aggravating place to have battery failure is the computer wireless keyboard, because you can't do anything until you replace the battery -and the batteries for mine are AAA -the very small ones, not used for anything else around here. Other things in our house which use batteries are wall clocks, torches and hand held devices. If you have little children you may have night lights, toys and games which also need batteries. 

 We keep a selection of battery sizes on hand so we don't have to run to the shop at awkward moments to get a new battery. This is just a bit or regular household 'magic' that can de-stress an awkward moment and sometimes be a big thing. We recognised this week that our battery stash is a bit scattered. Maybe I should try to find a good receptical and bring them all together so that we don't do a mad scramble when something dies. Nearby could be a place to stash used batteries, so that I can take them for recycling (they should never go in landfill!).

One major cause of frustration is anything 'remote controlled' -including TVs, garage doors, etc.  Our CD player is used daily during our morning meditation, and has a remote control. Just replacing the battery gives a moment of joy when the click starts our Hilda of Bingen music.

DH keeps a pretty well resourced handyman shed. Now that his knee replacement is behind him, he is back to tinkering in the shed again. One of the projects on his bench at the moment is a wheeled plant pot stand. It got buckled because I put a heavy pot plant with a ficus benjamina in it on the stand but it was too heavy. I like to have wheels on that pot plant so I can turn it around and keep the tree symetrical as it responds to the light. DH is going to reinforce the pot stand with a scrap piece of wood so that it can be used again, and we don't need to buy a new stand. This will require a bit of nifty cutting with one of his favourite tools -the band saw. 

We keep warranties and ownership manuals in plastic pockets in a lever arch file. This has been invaluable. 

• Why is that light flashing on the induction stovetop? 
• How do I clean the exhaust fan over the stove? 
• Can I fix the dishwasher by buying a new part? 
• How do I program this new appliance?

 Lots of things can be solved by reading the manual. If you can't solve it sometimes you can find the address of the supplier/manufacturer and order a new part which will solve the problem. If you have bought an appliance second hand you can often get a manual online. I did this recently with my new-to-me icecream maker.

If not, there are many good videos on the internet which will show you how to fix a lot of things. 

Then of course there is the good old 'tie it up with wire' approach, time honoured in the song True Blue by John Williamson. The real masters of this approach are the stars of Bush Mechanics -a humorous TV show about First Nations people hacking cars in the outback to keep them functioning 'some how".  For these times, a creativity and a 'she'll be right' approach can be what is required. In the garden, my cable ties and bits of scrap wood  or tree branches can make a whole lot of useful shade in a temporary arrangement, like this I have made at the east end of a struggling garden bed, when I realised the hot morning sun was making the silverbeet struggle. I just cut a couple of branches of bamboo and cable tied them to the end of the bed. Instant shade! Not too dark, and no money required.

Then there are the things you might find in an op shop, or a skip, or offered for free from a neighbour. They might be a bit battered, or neglected or broken, but maybe you can fix them and get more life out of them? 

We bought a rather battered old dining table at the tip shop for about $10. DH thought it was 'good wood' underneath, and had an idea. He cut down the legs, sanded and smoothed the top, turned some of the boards around...and then we have this fabulous coffee table. He used a waxed finish, so that anytime its life has been a bit rough, we can get the wax furniture polish out and buff it up again. We both love it. 

We also try to keep a list of repairers and general 'fix it' helpers -the computer shop which is able to replace a mother board, the sewing machine mechanic who can source old parts, the 'guy up the road' with a history of fixing garden equipment, all sorts of helpers. In Australia if your spectacles are broken, you can take them to any optician and they will fix them on the spot, usually free of charge. These people are rare and valuable. 

Finally a thought from Brenna Quinlan, Permaculture illustrator and teacher

So, save money and be happy: Fix Things!